


Back Before We Were Broken Hearted

by trinityrenee



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, But I'm doing it, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gendrya - Freeform, Idk what i'm doing, Modern AU, arya's been gone for three years, i hated the ending but by god am i gonna make it worth it, i'll add more relationship tags when they come up, in which arya comes back to westeros after years of travelling, specifically that post by gendrybaratheon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-26 06:56:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19000666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityrenee/pseuds/trinityrenee
Summary: Canon-compliant Modern!AU.  After graduating high school, Arya Stark basically disappeared off the face of the planet.  She had wanted to see the world and go on adventures.  But now, three years later, she's shown up unannounced in Storm's End, seemingly out of nowhere.  Gendry can still feel the sting of her rejection and hasn't forgotten her words since and isn't exactly the happiest to see her again after all this time.  She knows she broke his heart and has regretted it everyday she's spent away.  But now she's back and done with her adventures and is determined to make him trust her again.Title for the fic comes from 'Rebel Girl' by Angels & Airwaves





	1. Arya

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of can't believe I'm actually writing again, let alone fanfic. But this Tumblr post was shared in a Gendrya Discord server and I just had to write it. It was begging for a multi-chapter fic. I don't really know how long this is going to be but I'll try to update as often as possible (I won't make any promises on how often, though...I always shoot myself in the foot with that). I hope you enjoy it~ I had fun writing this first chapter just setting everything up.

The smell of the sea had become like a second home to her over the last three years.  She’d seen every shore and every sea from the western coast of Westeros to the eastern coast of the Shadow Lands and even down to the shores of Sothoryos.  She’d spent the last three years travelling, enjoying the freedom away from responsibilities and her family.

Ever since she was a little girl, she had wanted to see the world beyond Winterfell.  Even spending her middle and half of her high school years in King’s Landing weren’t enough to sate the wanderlust that had taken root in her veins.

Arya would never be like her mother wanted her to be - following her sister to a prestigious college and studying...whatever the hell Sansa had been studying before she left.  No, at eighteen, Arya had seen the chance to travel the world and see things she had never seen before and took it.

She guessed the real reason she wanted to travel was because of her year abroad in Braavos when she was a junior in high school.   _ That _ was when things really kicked off for her.  She’d gotten to live among the canals and experience freedom from the expectations of her family name for the first time in her entire life.

In Braavos, she wasn’t another Stark - one of the heirs to the one of the richest and oldest families in Westeros.  The Braavosi didn’t give a shit where she came from or what kind of money her family had or that her father was one of the most powerful businessmen in the country.  She left all of that behind her while she was in Braavos and even though she’d gotten mugged at the end of her stay, that didn’t mean anything. She could have gotten mugged literally anywhere.

So, after graduating high school and turning eighteen, it only felt natural for her to continue on that journey - to find that freedom that she’d found in Braavos.

Arya had spent a year darting between Braavos, Pentos, Myr, and Tyrosh and worked her way east from there.  She spent a month in Old Valyria, hiking among the ruins that had been preserved by the volcanic eruptions that had happened thousands of years ago.  From there, she went into Slaver’s Bay and spent five months among the pyramids of Mereen, Astapor, and Yunkai before going north to Vaes Dothrak.

Everywhere she went, Arya Stark was simply just Arya.  And though she missed her family, she also knew that this was where she was meant to be.  Learning different languages and surviving on her own abilities to find her way around. For the first time in her life, Arya wasn’t held up to the highest standards of her family or her siblings.

Now, after three years, she was here.  She hadn’t even gone back to Winterfell yet - the flights from Yeen in Sothoryos didn’t go directly to Winterfell, only to Sunspear and Storm’s End.  So she had taken the Storm’s End flight because it was going to be cheaper to fly to Winterfell from there than it was from Sunspear. At least that’s what she told herself.

Arya spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Storm’s End, the big historic drum castle looming over the city.  It wasn’t nearly as well preserved as the castle in Winterfell or King’s Landing, but it was still impressive. That’s where she had gone first.  To explore the castle on the cliffs and stand at the top of the tower and look out over the sea.

It was as she was looking out over the sea and then over the city as she turned her head that she allowed the thoughts of her best friend in the entire world to fill her mind.  Was he still her best friend? He had to be. Sure, they left things on a somewhat bad note before she left and they hadn’t really talked in the three years she’d been away, but that didn’t change anything.  She still loved him.

Her loving him was probably the reason she’d been stalling for so long.  But it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she had chosen to fly here, to Storm’s End, than to Sunspear and then home to Winterfell.

So, with that thought in mind, she had turned on her heel and walked down the spiral stairs through the floors of the drum castle and down the streets, just wandering.  Somehow (she would insist unconsciously), she found the shop that her brother had told her Gendry was working at. She stood across the street for a few minutes, unsure of whether or not to go inside and bug him.  They hadn’t exactly left on the best terms before she had left.

It wasn’t her fault, though.  Arya had been secretly planning her post-graduation trip to Braavos for the last six months of her senior year.  She hadn’t wanted any of her siblings or her parents to find out and stop her. Which was why she hadn’t told Gendry, her best friend since she was twelve.  He also happened to be her brother Jon’s best friend as well, but only after Arya had introduced them when he moved up to Winterfell the summer before she went to Braavos the first time.

Arya hadn’t told Gendry because she hadn’t wanted him to go blabbing to Jon - she wasn’t sure if he would or not but she’d convinced herself that he would.  Arya going off on her own in the big wide world without telling anyone wasn’t something that Gendry would have kept to himself. Probably. At least that’s what she told herself.

And then on the night before her graduation, during her graduation party, Gendry had kissed her.  Or, well...she had kissed Gendry. She had definitely kissed him first but then he kissed her and then… well, things escalated quickly from there and before she knew it, they had slept together.

That was when things had changed between them.  As if initiating a kiss with your best friend wasn’t something to change things forever.  She liked it, though. Liked the way it felt with his lips pressed against hers and his hands on her skin.  Liked how he made her feel alive in the best of ways and like he knew what she wanted - what she  _ needed _ \- without asking or being told.

She had left the bed in the guest room before he woke up in the morning.  And then she was so busy playing the good little daughter for her mother and dealing with her brothers and sister and then her graduation to give much thought about how things had changed between her and Gendry.

She had kind of guessed that he had liked her for a while.  She didn't know when exactly things had changed for them, or when she realized that she liked him as well.  But, well, she did. Which kind of terrified her because the last boy she'd even shown an inkling of interest in had been scared shitless by Joffrey fucking Lannister and his goons.  All because Joffrey had been dating Sansa and decided that meant he could be an ass to her sister in front of Mycah. Mycah got his ass handed to him and both Joffrey and Sansa blamed Arya for it all.  It had caused a major rift in the Stark household for  _ years _ , until Arya went away to Braavos for that year abroad.

Gendry wasn't Mycah, though, and it wasn't like Sansa's Golden Prince had been around since he dumped her for Margaery Tyrell (who had then dumped him but that was another story altogether).  Arya knew that Gendry could take care of himself and she and Sansa were actually friendly now but...still. The fear had been there.

Arya didn't do deep feelings or intimacy.  She'd never truly dated anyone while she was in high school and Gendry was really the first person that she had true and deep emotions for.  Which scared her. Which was probably another reason she hadn't told him about her going abroad for a year.

Granted, that year had easily turned into a bit over three but that was neither here nor there.

So. When Gendry had caught her after her graduation, when she was sitting on the back porch away from her friends and family and all of  _ their _ friends, she didn't know what to tell him.  Not really.

He had asked her what her plans were and, figuring that she meant to take a break before going to college, asked if she would move down to Storm's End with him and if they could start dating because he loved her and he got a really amazing job offer at one of the best shops in the country and he didn't want to leave her or do it alone.

Arya hadn't known what to say when he called her beautiful or looked at her like she was every star in the night sky.  His confession had touched her, really. But at the same time, she had been planning her exploration trip for  _ months _ and she wasn't about to throw that away.  So she had told him no. That she didn't feel the same about him.  Couldn't live with him and go somewhere when she knew that he would be happier with someone else.  She would just be holding him back.

She regretted it, of course.  Because she  _ had _ felt the same for him but she was scared and Arya Stark wasn't afraid of anything, least of all a fucking  _ boy _ .  Or young man, since he was five years older than her eighteen.  Whatever.

The look on his face had made her insides turn sour and her chest ache uncomfortably but she shut those feelings down and out and three days later, without even telling him goodbye, she got on the plane to Braavos and didn't look back.  Even though she often rolled that scenario over in her head over and over again and the look of hurt and betrayal on Gendry's face was probably going to haunt her damn dreams for the rest of forever.

Arya didn't know exactly why she was stalling or why her feet seemed to be glued to the cement of the sidewalk across the street from Gendry's shop when they had brought her here of their own accord.  She took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves and then forced her Doc-clad feet to move. She was Arya fucking Stark and she had travelled all over the world. She wasn't afraid of anything.

The bell above the door rang and Arya ignored the uneasy feeling in her stomach as she shoved her hands into the back pockets of her skinny jeans and looked around the lobby, waiting for someone to come in from the back.

"I told you yesterday your damn car isn't gonna be be ready until tomorrow, Thoros!" a voice floated through the open door into the garage bay beyond.  Arya's heart rate picked up as she recognized the voice. She whirled her head around to see Gendry wiping his hands on a rag as he walked towards the lobby.

She blinked away her nerves and took another deep breath as she looked him over quickly.  He looked good. Muscled just the same as last time, maybe more. His hair was longer on top again rather than shaved close to his scalp like it had been the last time she'd seen him.  He also had a goatee and some stubble coating his cheeks. When his blue eyes finally looked up from his hands to where Arya stood, she offered him a smile even as his face fell.

Alright. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.


	2. Gendry

If someone had asked Gendry what he expected his day to be like, he certainly wouldn’t have said that a ghost from his past would come waltzing into his auto shop.  The worst part was, that his stupid heart betrayed him and made him actually  _ glad _ to fucking see her.  She looked all at once the same and completely different.  Which, he supposed, three years would do that to a person.

She had pink hair now, though it was faded and her mousy-brown roots were showing through as if she hadn’t dyed it in a while.  A yellow knitted sweater covered her torso and it struck Gendry that he was pretty sure this was the first time he had seen her when she  _ wasn’t _ wearing all black.  The sweater was tucked into a pair of dark high-waisted skinny jeans that made her short legs look longer than they were and hugged the swell of her hips and left nothing to the imagination as far as her ass went… 

Shit.  Fuck. Gendry.  Gendry  _ no _ . 

“Hey,” she said in that all-too-familiar chirp of a voice.  Seven buggering Hells. He’d almost forgotten what her voice sounded like.  But he hadn’t, not really. Just...the last he remembered that voice, it was telling him to go find someone else because she didn’t want him.

He hadn’t been able to find someone else because no one was good enough, not after  _ her _ .  Not that he’d tell her that.  Not in a million years.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked.  Because that was the only fucking thing he could think to say right now that wouldn’t make him sound like an utter knob.  And because he had to know.

It had been  _ three gods-damned years _ since he had seen Arya Stark last.  And she’d broken his heart and just left the damn country without another word or a glance back.  In fact, the only way that he’d known that she had been alive this whole time was because of her brother Jon.

“What, no hello?” she quipped, smirking at him as she had her hands shoved in the back pocket of those jeans.

Gendry forced his eyes off of her hands (because he definitely was  _ not _ looking at her ass again) and back to her face.  “Hello. What’re you doing here?” he asked again.

She had gotten what she wanted but she ignored his question as she looked around the lobby at the worn furniture that was comfortable as all hell.  She didn’t move from her spot even as she took her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms over her chest.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  Her grey eyes were back on him and that damn smirk was still there.

Gendry just shrugged.  “Maybe because I have.”  A ghost of his past, anyway.

Arya sighed and took a step toward him, then paused and seemed to look him over.  Gendry didn’t let her stare bother him too much. Or tried not to, at least. He shifted his weight on his feet as he crossed his own arms over his chest.  Arya’s smirk turned into a smile that sent his heart racing before he could so much as think.

Seven Hells.

“I just got back to Westeros and flew into Storm’s End.  I’m here for a few days...I just wanted to drop by and see how you were doing.”  Finally. A fucking answer.

“Well you can see how I’m doing pretty well,” he deadpanned.  She seemed almost taken aback by his response, if the tilt of her head and the slight furrowing of her brow was anything to go by.

“I mean… Yeah, I guess,” she said after a moment.  “You don’t seem happy to see me.”

Gendry blinked at her.  And she used to call  _ him _ stupid.

Not that she was stupid.  Not by a long shot, no. She was one of the smartest people he had ever met and usually knew how other people were feeling better than they did.  But it was a stupid thing of her to say.

Honestly, Gendry  _ was _ happy to see her.  He just didn’t want to tell her that or go back to acting like things hadn’t changed between them.  Like the last three years had been zero fucking contact and zero word of how she was or  _ where _ she was or why she had just... _ left. _

“I am,” he told her.  Because it was the truth and he didn’t see the point in lying to her - Arya had always been able to sniff out lies even back when she was twelve years old.  He also said it because he didn't know what else to say to her. What she wanted him to say or what she expected him to say.

Or how she had expected him to react to her waltzing in out of literally nowhere.

“Right,” she said, clearly not believing him even though he  _ had _ told the truth.  “Well, when do you get off?  Would you want to go get something to eat?” she asked.

Gendry held in his sigh as he thought of what to tell her.  He could lie - say that he had plans or a date with a non-existent girlfriend.  But that wouldn’t do him any good because she was a human lie detector. He wasn’t even sure she was human half the time.

“Gendry?  You okay?” she asked again, taking another step toward him.  Apparently he’d been quiet for too long or had some kind of look on his face that told her that he wasn’t okay.  He nodded absently, still running options around in his mind.

He hated how it was hard to think when she was around.  He hated that she had this effect on him even after breaking his gods damn heart without a second thought.

“I don’t know, Arya.  You just come waltzing on in here like you haven’t spent the last three years somewhere fucking else and haven’t talked to me once since…” he paused, not exactly wanting to admit what he did to him outloud.  “Since you left.”

Arya wilted a bit, biting down on her lower lip and  _ Seven Hells if she could just  _ not _ do that. _  “Yeah… Sorry ‘bout that,” she said.  Gendry hated the way that he wanted to tell her she didn’t even have to apologize.  That it was water under the bridge and he was glad that she had come here and was staying for a few days.  Even if it meant that she’d be leaving again. Even if it meant his heart was going to get broken all over again as soon as she went back to Winterfell.

She opened her mouth like she was going to say more but Gendry cut her off.  “I get off at six. We can go get food if you want. You’re buying, though.”

Arya’s grin was dazzling and he forced himself to turn away to head back toward the garage bay to get back to work.

“I’ll meet you here, then!” she called after him as he retreated into the bay and away from the lobby.   The bell above the lobby door dinged, signaling that she had left again, and Gendry’s shoulders slumped. 

Running a hand over his face, Gendry shook his head.  He wasn’t going to be able to get  _ anything _ done for the next three hours until six o’clock came.  Which would be a bummer for Thoros because it was his piece of shit van he’d been working on for the last day and a half and he’d promised to have it done tomorrow.

Oh well.  The guitarist probably wouldn’t care too much about his car being delayed another day or a few more hours.  But still. Gendry should at least pretend like he was working on the stupid thing.

He rolled himself back under the car and got to work reattaching the fuel line that had been leaking for the last six months.

To no one’s surprise, his mind wandered back to Arya Stark while he worked.

She looked gorgeous - which was probably part of the problem.  She looked so damn good and was definitely much more woman than she was girl.  Not that she’d been a girl in his eyes for a while, but she would be twenty-one now and the last time he’d seen her, she still had some of the childish roundness in her cheeks.

He still couldn’t quite believe that her hair was pink, of all colours.  He wondered what had led her to that decision or when she had gotten it done.  Or where. 

If he actually allowed himself to think about it, he could still taste her mouth and feel her hands ghosting along the planes of his chest and further down...

Gendry almost dropped the fucking torque wrench he was using on his face.  He really needed to not go down that line of thinking, not while he was at work.

Damn Arya Stark.  She had just waltzed in here like she owned the place.  Like she owned the damn world. Being a Stark, though, she practically  _ did _ own the world.  Or she could if she wanted to.  Not that she had ever used her family name to get whatever she wanted.  For as long as he had known her, Arya had avoided letting anyone know she was a Stark for as long as humanly possible.

Hell, he hadn’t even  _ known _ she was a Stark until almost a year after they’d met and that was only because her sister and her boyfriend Joffrey had shown up where they were playing footie and thrown a fit about her playing with boys much older and larger than she was and for getting dirty when Joffrey’s party was happening soon.

Arya was damn good at football, though.  Even at twelve, playing against a bunch of seventeen and eighteen year olds, she’d been a damn beast.

Gendry supposed it was probably weird that he’d made friends with a twelve year old in the first place, considering that he was practically five years older than her.  But there was something about her - her give-no-fucks and take-no-names attitude that had drawn him in in the first place.

Honestly, the very fact that they had managed to remain friends for so long was rather surprising, considering their age difference.  But it helped that Arya was wiser than her years and didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. Gendry had learned from her in that respect, if only when it came to the two of them and their friendship.

He couldn’t remember when he had fallen in love with her.  It had been strange, though, he remembered that much. Going from thinking that his best friend was just a kid to realizing that she wasn’t just that anymore.  That she had lips that looked extremely soft and kissable and 

But he was older than her and a creep, apparently, and he wasn’t about to be like some of the other men he’d gone to high school with who were dating high schoolers themselves even though they were in college.  He thought it was weird.

Not to mention the fact that she was a fucking  _ Stark _ and Gendry was a no one.  A Waters. How the hell his ancestors had just decided to keep the last name that used to connote bastardry when they could have chosen  _ literally anything else _ was beyond him.  Granted, he  _ was _ a bastard in the sense that his mother had him out of wedlock and he hadn’t ever known or met his family.  And had this been back in the olden days when the country was run by kings and queens who sat on the legendary Iron Throne, he would’ve been a Waters anyway.  But that was neither here nor there.

The point being - there was no way he would ever have a chance in any of the Seven Hells with Arya fucking Stark.

So he’d tamped his feelings down and ignored them and dated a couple of other girls like Jeyne Heddle and Loranna Raine.  Because he certainly did not have a crush on his underaged friend. Not in a million years.

The summer before her junior year of high school, she had moved back to Winterfell because she had been planning on going to Braavos for a year to study abroad.  Gendry didn’t know why, but he’d upped and moved North as well. If anyone had asked him why, he said it was because he had been looking at the mechanic’s trade school up in Winterfell anyway.  Really, he just couldn’t imagine his life without Arya Stark in it. The trade school was just a bonus.

Arya had introduced him to Jon there.  Jon Stark was  _ technically _ her cousin, but they had grown up so close and been raised together that he was like her brother.  She called him such, too, even though his mother was her aunt, who had passed away when Jon was young.

Jon was a good man - and his age, too, which helped make him feel a little less weird whenever he and Arya went somewhere to do something.  Because Jon would almost always come along, too. And while she was in Braavos for that year, he and Jon had become extremely good friends. They’d even moved in together when Gendry’s first lease was up.

When Arya came back from that year in Braavos, she had changed.  And not in a bad way, either. She had just...grown up and withdrawn a bit more into herself.  She was still seventeen, though, and Gendry wasn’t about to comment about how good she looked or how the year apart had only make him realize that he  _ loved _ her.

It was when she was graduating high school, when she was eighteen and completely legal, that he’d started flirting with her without realizing it.  Maybe they’d been flirting back and forth ever since she’d gotten back from Braavos, but either way…

The night she’d kissed him would be forever seared into his memory whether he liked it or not.  Things had only escalated from there and, well, Gendry had never been able to deny her anything, let alone when she’d started ripping his shirt over his head in the heat of the moment.

He had asked her if it was really what she wanted so many times that she’d told him if he’d said another word that she was going to turn around and walk out.

Then he’d gone and fucked it all up a couple of days later by asking if she would be his girlfriend and move down to Storm’s End with him because he’d gotten a job offer at one of the best auto shops in the country and he didn’t want to leave her here in Winterfell.  Or at all.

As if that had been good timing in the least.  As if he hadn’t assumed that it wasn’t just a one-night stand to her and that what had happened between them had meant anything to her.

And now here he was.  Three years later. Working in the damn auto shop that had lead to the conversation that broke his fucking heart.

The last three hours of his shift dragged on and it seemed like an entire day had passed since he’d rolled back under Thoros’ piece of shit van.  He still hadn’t finished fixing the stupid thing so he’d have to come in early tomorrow morning to get it done for his friend.

He was washing his hands in the big utility sink in the back of the shop when the front door to the lobby chimed again.  His heart rate started picking up again and Gendry sighed, wishing that Arya still didn’t have the same effect on him after all this time and after all that had happened between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thank you for all the comments, kudos, and bookmarks so far, everyone! I really appreciate it and I'm so glad that so many people are enjoying this so far. It's been a good long while that I've written anything outside of roleplaying and it feels good to work on an actual story again after so long. And it makes me feel good that people are enjoying it. C:
> 
> Also real quick last thing - I honestly can't see the bastard name practice sticking around through to the modern era. I can see them sort of integrating themselves into general society over time, with families choosing to keep the last name even with true-born children as the stigma around the names lessens and is kind of forgotten with history. Therefore, there are a lot of unrelated Waters, Stone, Sand, Snow, etc. families that are descendants of this transition period in Westerosi history. That's not to say it's still not something Gendry thinks about because it's just another obvious blow to the fact that he's so far removed from Arya's position of privilege in life. I hope this makes sense!


End file.
